It has been well said that “the list of diseases, the presence and extent of which are betrayed or confirmed by the X-ray, would fill pages and would include most of the enemies to human health. Among them may be mentioned many forms of tuberculosis, occult abscesses whose ramifying consequences physicians were once unable to refer to their source, tumors, cancers, kidney stones, gastric ulcers, diseases of the heart.” The martyrdom of radiologists has not been in vain. In cases of emergency, X-ray diagnosis may now be given patients in their own homes. A surgical X-ray outfit that can be carried in an ambulance and taken to the bedside of a patient too ill for removal to a hospital passed a successful trial in England, thus adapting an emergency war-time arrangement to civilian use. A generator in the ambulance operates the tube, which has a special mounting that enables it to be placed over the patient’s bed, and adjusted for height and position by hand-wheels. The control apparatus is mounted on a separate stand, and connected with the ambulance outside by a cable wound on a reel. Provision is made for developing the exposed plates at once, so that a diagnosis can be made in a few minutes. CHAPTER IV DISCOVERY AND NATURE OF X-RAYS In March, 1923, there passed from this world one of the most beautiful exemplars of the true scientific spirit that earth has ever seen—Dr. William Conrad Roentgen, F.R.S., Professor of Experimental Physics in the University of Munich, the discoverer of X- or Roentgen Rays. Born at Lennep, on March 27, 1845, Professor Roentgen filled a number of important posts before his death in 1923, in which year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics—an award which brought with it a gift of $40,000. Although suffering from the poverty which resulted in Germany as an aftermath of the World War, Professor Roentgen refused to utilize the Nobel Prize award for his own personal uses. He gave the entire sum to a research society to enable other students to carry on their investigations. While occupying the chair of Professor of Physics and Director of the Physical Institute at Würzburg, Dr. Roentgen made the discovery—in 1895—for which his name is chiefly known—though his researches led to important advances in several other departments of physics.